Ammunition was a real concern for Travis, but had he not been so cautious, he could have killed the PC that attacked him and Anna with a headshot. Instead, he tried to save bullets, thinking shots to the chest would suffice. They did not, and she died as a result.

Now, he did not hold back when firing on the tiny creatures. This wasn't some cartel shootout; he wasn't "busting shots" like crazy, but he fired whenever he had even the slightest target, even using his weapon to draw out archers when they were too far behind cover.

Like most docks, there was a section of stone wall to the left where Travis was, then the bay door and a three-foot section of stone wall in the center. Finally, the second bay door and the rest of the wall to the right of it. Here is where Gary took cover, waiting to move to the center once the monsters were occupied. For now, Clyde came running up and took that position. He did have the shield, but instead of the baton in his attack arm, Clyde was carrying the staff of an orc priest.

Travis looked at him questioningly, “What are you doing? Where is the baton?” he asked.

“I have it in my bag, but I have been thinking of trying out this staff to increase my fire spell. What better time than now?” he said, thinking Travis would approve.

He did not, and for solid reasoning. “It's not. The best time is when no one's in danger, and you can practice. You want to use tried and true methods in a fight.” As if to amplify his words, arrows started coming towards the position Travis was holding. The creatures, Kobolds it turned out, organized an attack to the left side. The arrows kept him in cover, and seven Kobolds ran up to the building, a few feet from the door.

From his angle, Clyde could see the first few in line. He held out the staff, still behind cover but in line with the monsters closest to the building, and tried to focus. It was actually working; the problem was no fire came from the staff; it was coming out of his other hand, burning the handle on the riot shield. Clyde unhooked it and pointed his hand towards the monsters. A stream of flame did come out, but not in an effective enough way. The Kobolds, seeing this, gained confidence and started to run for the opening. While the Kobolds occupied that open space the arrows stopped coming towards that side of the dock.

Travis, meanwhile, had backed up about seven feet and was shooting the monsters as they tried to get up on the dock. On the other side, more Kobolds had worked their way to the building; they tried to sneak up as their comrades drew attention. Unfortunately for them, the only attention needed to repel them was Travis and his Beretta. He put a new clip in and kept firing. Two made it up onto the building, but only because Travis was walking up to kick them down. He had blown through two clips already.

On the other side, Clyde had dropped the staff and pulled out his blade. He had no skill with the weapon still but knew where the pointed end needed to go. He stuck the small creatures as they tried to climb up. Gary also joined the fray at this point, swinging his ax like a madman. A few Kobold archers saw the attack faltering, so they started firing arrows at the humans not as worried about hitting their mates.

One just missed Gary, but another came in and hit Clyde in his thigh. It hurt like hell, but there was no back line; this was it. Clyde hung in there as long as he could, swinging his blade like a man possessed.

Lucky for them, most of the mojo had been taken out of the cowardly creatures. Any of them that were repelled from the building fled, while at least 15 lay injured or dead on the ground in front of the building. Another handful lay dead in the woods with gunshot wounds to the head.

Gary hit a couple more but was now being waylaid by the last few of the enemies' short swords. Seeing this, and free from attackers on his side, Travis shot two of them before Gary received anything more than a few surface wounds. The other one jumped down and started running.

Travis looked out to the direction they were running in. The location of their base was now known, so this probably wouldn't be the last time they were attacked. They would have to push out in the direction of the enemy camp, or at least have a sentry position. He was going to need more people.

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The moans of pain in the building were loud as Clyde fell down. Kasey, Gary's daughter, had been watching this all play out. She got some medical supplies from her bag and started heading towards the dock. She was a nurse's assistant in a local primary care office. There would be no medical miracles à la Dr. House being performed, but she could mend wounds and perform other minor medical procedures. Having a person with a background in medicine, even one with limited experience like Kasey, would be a huge addition to the base camp if Travis could get them to stay.

Right now, though, they had more pressing concerns. Were all the Kobolds dead or gone, and how should they go about ending them if they were not? Also, how bad was Clyde's injury? They couldn't afford to lose anyone for too long if these were the size of the attacks they could expect.

***

The Kobold chief could not believe his eyes. He had sent a large raiding party to seek out easy prey and bring back supplies for the tribe. Yet now he saw only about a third of the number come running back, and half of them had injuries. They did not appear to have anything of value with them either. These scalekin were a strange lot, more bloodthirsty than his old clan and also lacking in discretion. His memories of former kin were that of serving the tribe, finding secure shelter and ample food, only fighting when called to the clan's defense or, in rare cases, raiding other creatures when supplies were scarce.

Yet ever since the great Dragon Mother chose him and other members of his tribe to come out to this unusual place, things had been much different. For one, he was surprised to not know any scalekin chosen by name or face. His tribe was large but imagine the odds.

Next, why choose such unruly members for such an important mission, such as it was. He would never speak these questions aloud to any; that would be a great insult to the revered one. One of the tribe, this one called Ssark, took him out of his contemplation by speaking, “clan leader, many of our kin have died at the hands of a human settlement. They had a weapon of great power.”

“How many were there?” It must have been a large group; should they evacuate this camp?

The Kobold didn't answer for a few seconds. He finally said, “they seemed to be small in number, maybe three, but this weapon, clan leader, was...” He was cut off.

“Three?!” yelled the chief. “Muster the warriors; we go at dusk.”

“How many warriors?” asked his head warrior.

“All of them!” the chief yelled. He preferred to lay low but would not have his clan treated in such a way by three humans, powerful weapon or not.

That's when something strange happened to the clan leader. He heard a voice in his head. Was this the Dragon Mother speaking with him?

“Belay that order,” it said authoritatively. “From now on, you will only give orders that come from me first.” Before the chief could react in outrage, he saw a diminutive-looking wolf walk into his camp holding nothing but a staff. It was most certainly not the Dragon Mother.

As Travis spoke to Kasey about Clyde's injury, he had to decide whether or not to give him one of the few healing potions they had. Fortunately, no major arteries were hit, and she was able to clean the wound, but he would be off his feet for some time.

If he could ever get some time to go through everything in the chest maybe there were other healing methods on sight. It seemed though that they went from one crisis to another. He also had to figure out how to get light inside the base, and how to work the watch schedule.

Most of the entrances were pretty secure so he could just lock up and hope to go unnoticed. Would the Kobolds be cowed into submission or would they come back for revenge. Clyde was of the opinion that they lack bravery and would not be back, but this new world was not a copy of DnD or some video game. It had its own nuances and rules.

As he had thought numerous times, he needed more people. He had two otherwise able-bodied men down with injury right now though. Not knowing the measure of Kasey's boyfriend Thomas, he wasn't sure how bad his issue was. Thats when he had an idea.

The HQ was a comfortable 73 degrees. It was so clean but didn't have any type of smell. This room couldn't have been built anything less than a few days before he arrived. He knew he didn't have time for these kinds of reveries though, so he went to the system, they had decided to call it the system, and clicked on the help section. He started typing.

Travis: "Did potion bottles need to be taken in their entirety for them to work?"

System: "There are countless types of healing potions, but generally a full bottle will give the full effect. It's fair to assume that less will only decrease the effectiveness by the amount missing."

Travis: "Are there any healing potions in the chest?"

System: "Why don't you check?"

Travis: "I do not have time and would hate to rush though something as important as the contents of this base. I will have to take an audit of everything but need more time. I have injured people but limited healing supplies."

He figured he might as well spell out his predicament. The reply he got back was not the chatbot level of discussion he had experienced so far.